


Things That Weren't Planned

by story_monger



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Birthday of the World - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Sedoretu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/story_monger/pseuds/story_monger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with a text from Irene, stops in the middle with Mary and John and ends in a wedding. In which Sherlock becomes a married man without him really expecting it.</p><p>Originally posted on sherlockbbc LJ as part of the Sherlock BBC Summer '12 Commfest</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Weren't Planned

**Author's Note:**

> Note for readers unfamiliar with the planet O:  
> Ki'O society is divided into two halves or moieties, called (for ancient religious reasons) the Morning and the Evening. You belong to your mother's moiety, and you can't have sex with anybody of your moiety.  
> Marriage on O is a foursome, the sedoretu — a man and a woman from the Morning moiety and a man and a woman from the Evening moiety. You're expected to have sex with both your spouses of the other moiety, and not to have sex with your spouse of your own moiety. So each sedoretu has two expected heterosexual relationships, two expected homosexual relationships, and two forbidden heterosexual relationships.  
> The expected relationships within each sedoretu are:  
> The Morning woman and the Evening man (the "Morning marriage")  
> The Evening woman and the Morning man (the "Evening marriage")  
> The Morning woman and the Evening woman (the "Day marriage")  
> The Morning man and the Evening man (the "Night marriage")  
> The forbidden relationships are between the Morning woman and the Morning man, and between the Evening woman and the Evening man, and they aren't called anything, except sacrilege.  
> It's just as complicated as it sounds, but aren't most marriages?  
> * Mountain Ways by Ursula le Guin

He wasn't surprised. Perhaps the last year and a half had dulled things, or perhaps he knew her better than he gave himself credit for. But the text alert felt like the arrival of an old friend on whom he'd been waiting. There it sounded and then there she was, without preamble or games this time. She knew, then. He wasn't surprised.

"Brazil wasn't kind to you," Irene observed as she placed her forearms on the edge of the table. Sherlock observed her, took in how she'd chosen to present herself with her hair and clothes. He was reading what she wanted him to have, and this time she had a story to tell. It hit something inside Sherlock that he wasn't familiar with, that she wanted him to know so much. 

She smiled ever so slightly, a twist in the lip that could be mistaken for a smirk.

He wondered if she'd missed him, in her own way. It had taken him until that moment to realize that he'd missed her, terribly. 

He straightened his shirt, ran his finger along the rim of his glass, and said, "I managed to get the cartels after me."

 

Their meetings were infrequent, as they had to be. There were dangerous people watching Sherlock, and while Irene was more than capable of blackmailing half of them into leaving her alone and distracting the other half into forgetting her involvement in the matter, he didn't like to consciously cause any undue risk. It felt as if he'd come this far to protect people who mattered. It did no good to tempt fate when Irene Adler was concerned. Because she mattered, just a little too much. 

Enough that, when she texted, he answered back partly out of a sheer, unacknowledged loneliness and mostly because he wanted to see what she had to say, to hear her particular brand of wit in the black and white pixels she sent his way. At the moment, John was the ember held somewhere deep inside and Irene was the torch fire. 

It was horrible and messy and sentimental, but things like that happened to Sherlock now, now that he'd begun garnering people who mattered.

It felt like a betrayal, almost, to sit with Irene and drink in her presence like a man dying of thirst. John was small and good and warm, while Irene suffused the air around her with barely moral actions and sharp, brilliant ideas that met Sherlock's brain with a delicious spark. 

Not that anyone would have accused him of cheating on the memory of John Watson. Irene was of the Morning moiety as much as John, after all. Any Evening man needed one of each for true happiness, people would have said. Five years ago, Sherlock wouldn't have believed the idea that even one Morning person could make him happy in that particular way. To have two Morning people he…well. It was something of a shock once he realized it, that was all.

 

It was a civil partnership, not a full sedoretu, so Sherlock couldn't, shouldn't feel anything like a pang or jealously when he heard the news from Mycroft. John Watson had merely found the other bit of himself, which was good and normal and not wrong. 

Still, it was probably not good that Sherlock risked exposing his position by conducting a basic search for one Mary Morstan. What he found gave him an odd, simultaneous sense of relief and sharp, awful jealousy. A 38 year old genetic researcher, medium height and build, brown eyes and fair hair. Won this or that fellowship. Her jewelry spoke of a modest lifestyle, her hair of practicality. That was all Sherlock could decipher, based on the grainy staff photo he found. 

And it felt odd, just terribly odd, to think that there was an Evening woman who could meet John's Morning with steadfastness and loyalty, that there was another person to complement Sherlock in the art of loving John Watson. It was expected by nearly everyone, and thus odd.

 

"She's perfectly lovely," Irene promised in Philadelphia. They were sharing the shade of a spreading oak, just outside a small café. Sherlock made an undistinguished noise.

"Did Mycroft say as much?" he asked.

"I met her myself," Irene announced, then gave her smirk-smile. "Don't worry, I didn't turn her unfaithful. It was all very proper, in fact. Though poor John didn't know how to react to find me alive for a second time."

"I suspect he partially knew," Sherlock murmured. Irene gave him a look, and didn't answer. 

"Her family's Welsh, except for her Morning father," she continued after a moment. "She grew up with all four parents, though she's said she's perfectly content to stay with a civil partnership rather than a proper marriage." Naturally, Sherlock thought. John would have explained it all. Any woman he loved would have understood, would have accepted the presence of her dead Evening brother.

The idea of Mary meeting said Evening brother sent Sherlock's heart in odd directions. 

He looked across the table to realize too late he'd been displaying his emotions like an open book. When Irene gave a real, small smile and leaned across to brush a leaf from his shoulder, it felt immeasurably comforting.

 

In the end, after everything was over, it was Irene who had to convince Sherlock to meet John and Mary at all. It started with subtle hints and ended with John roaring and crying and finally grasping and kissing and somehow, in the middle of it all, laughing and telling Mary to finally meet the other love of his life.

It was very overwhelming, until Mary caught Sherlock in a fierce, sad embrace, as if to tell him, "never do that again, you daft lovely idiot. He loves you too much, and it hurts me, to see him missing his other Evening." When she pulled back and Sherlock could see her face, he saw then, "but it must have been hard. I love him as much as you, you know. It must have been so hard."

Then Sherlock's brain went very quiet, which suited Sherlock fine.

 

It still wasn't a proper sedoretu, of course, but it felt like a kind of living dream for Sherlock. John and Mary had been living in the London suburbs, but after some discussion among the three of them, 221B once more became home. With Mary's income, they could rent out 221C as well, though Mrs. Hudson would probably have simply given it to them, she was so thrilled to have her boys, and now a surrogate daughter. 

It took some adjusting, of course. Things had to be said and explained and forgiven. There were months of impromptu talks at the kitchen table and beneath cotton sheets and on the way to the store. Mary was lovely and gracious through all of it, of course. John wouldn't have loved any other kind of person, next to Sherlock's stumbling, prickling version of affection.

The longer he knew her, the longer Sherlock managed to see the ways in which Mary filled the spaces in John that Sherlock would never reach. It was jarring and gratifying to realize. Mary laughed and told Sherlock she was getting used to the idea as well. John announced that it was just as well they had Mary now, because she managed to keep a tidy room and human sleeping hours.

 

It kept growing, and moving forward, and Sherlock didn't even realize that anything was amiss until Mary asked after Irene.

"She came to see us, did she tell you?" Mary asked one afternoon. She was perched on the couch with a research journal, Sherlock just inside the kitchen with a sample of someone's saliva. He paused when Mary spoke.

"Yes," he said after a moment too long. Mary flipped a few pages of the magazine, looking for the end of the article. 

"John told me about how you all met," she said, setting the magazine aside and twisting around to watch Sherlock over the back of the couch. Sherlock almost didn't believe it until he looked at Mary and saw her expression. Maybe Mary herself didn't realize it yet, but she would the next time she saw Irene. Irene, the flaming torch light who was most definitely not the marrying type.

It did happen, in any case. Irene showed up without preamble, as was her way, and Sherlock and John watched the women fall into something familiar and deep and kind. John was only just suspecting it. Sherlock was watching each step as it progressed. 

That night, after John and Mary had retired, Irene sent Sherlock a particularly deep smile-smirk.

"I said she was lovely," she said to his unvoiced comment. Sherlock tilted his head. Irene looked back into her hands. "She's like what John is for you, I expect," she said. "She's so good." 

"She and John want to have a child," Sherlock said. He thought he could see a flash of something in Irene then, some filigree of a thought of what it would be like to take in the domesticity that John and Mary carried with them like a light. To be allowed to take it in, just once in awhile, and let it soak the deep, dry places that could be ignored but were always there.

"I'd be a terrible wife," Irene said, voice low. Sherlock leaned across the couch then, because he'd caught a glimpse of what Irene had let herself momentarily imagine, and pressed his lips against hers. She tasted like pomegranate. 

"I'm a terrible husband," he said. "But they know that. I think they like it. They're not entirely saints, you know." She gave him a look, excused herself, was gone by the next morning. 

She returned a few weeks later, of course, as if nothing had happened, because Irene Adler did what she wanted. She settled herself into their lives like a bird, brief and beautiful in her presences.

In the months that followed, Sherlock could see the way Irene's lipstick was sometimes smudged, and Mary looking mildly, though not entirely guilty when he caught her staring at Irene. He couldn't blame Mary, of course. Irene was a wonder, and her mind and her presence sent something sparking through Sherlock every time they completed a dance of pure glorious intellect around one another. 

Once John caught on, he loved it, Sherlock could tell. He watched Irene and Mary talk with a tenderness around his eyes that made Sherlock want to spring across the room and kiss him until they couldn't breathe. He did exactly that, once, and emerged slightly bewildered at the way John was grinning and the feminine laughs beside him.

And then, he found himself having strangely comradely discussions with Mary on what it meant to love Irene Adler and John Watson simultaneously. On how one was to be cherished and the other chased, one golden and the other clear, brilliant emerald. He suspected John and Irene had similar discussions, when he came into the flat and found the Morning brother and sister sharing a kettle of tea.

"I never thought I'd get this feeling," Mary told him once, after she'd simultaneously dragged him to the store and John had shooed him from the flat. Something about the sulfer Sherlock had been working with.

Now, Sherlock tucked his hands into his pockets and didn't ask Mary to clarify. He suspected they all shared that slightly awed, awkward feeling about what they were building. Mary glanced over at him, her grin knowing. She had that sort of grin. Sherlock was inexplicably fond of it.

"You had all four parents," he said distractedly. "I suppose you have a model."

"Maybe," Mary shrugged, then hooked her arm through Sherlock's. "Irene texted me, said she'll be dropping by tonight," Mary added.

"Mm."

"Any preferences?" Sherlock gave her an exasperated expression.

"You've been aching to bed with her all month," he said. "I've never seen two people text so much."

"Pot, kettle, black," Mary announced, then steered Sherlock into the store and began a discussion on the diseased mice her lab had dissected that day. Her sense of humor was to do it loudly and pointedly in the aisles and checkout lane. Sherlock had to grin down at the floor twice.

Sherlock asked John, that night, whether this was what it felt like to properly love three people. Two as lovers, one as a sister. John pressed a kiss against his collarbone, while from the next room over, Mary's room, they could hear soft, slow shuffles. 

"Glad you finally figured it out, you idiot."

 

They married, properly, two years later. 

Sherlock still recalled the ceremony. It was simple and small, but it has been worth remembering in every detail. John was warm and golden in a navy blue suit. Irene splendid and sharp in emerald, Mary deep and glowing in a pale rose. 

Sherlock didn't think he was imagining the glow, either. He had seen the pregnancy test in the trash bin that morning. Mary had only known since then, and would laugh when Sherlock tried to pretend to be surprised when she shared the news that evening. John would be ecstatic and begin suggesting names and nursery wall colors. Irene would give her smirk-smile, kiss Mary deeply, disappear a few months later, return after two weeks. It would be her way.

John caught Sherlock's eye as he ran through his planned scenario, then smiled as if to admonish him for such things in the middle of their wedding. 

Sherlock planned to kiss him true and long the next night. It was tradition that the Morning and Evening marriages be consummated the first night, and John and Mary would want to follow that tradition. 

But John would warm and stabilize him, Irene would dance with him, Mary would hold his hand firmly, and it would be good. So, immeasurably good.


End file.
